Monday, September 20, 2010

Post 9/20

Out of the two articles assigned for class I found he article titled Oppression by Marilyn Frye to be the more interesting of the two. I tgought the article did a good job highlighting the many conflicting images that women struggle with. I think the most prevalent one is the one regarding women’s sexuality. Its like women are in a loose loose situation if the engage in sexual behavior they risks being called a whore and being treated as a “ easy lay by men”. She also risks being scorn by her female friends and is forced to lie to her parents. On the other hand if she does not engage in sexual behavior she risks being called names like uptight, manhater, and cocktease she even runs the risk of being called a lesbian. I cant imagine having to deal with these social stigmas when deciding whether or not to become sexually active. I saw on a website that the average American Women has five sexual partners in her lifetime being in college, with the “hook up” culture almost makes this seem as an impossible task for most girls so to many these girls would be labeled sluts. Is this fair absolutely not, I have this debate with my female friends all the time while this is not fair you need to be cognizant of it. You cannot go around sleeping with everyone just because guys do it and not be expect to be called a slut. I think sometimes women use being oppressed as an excuse to why they are not as successful or able to do the things that they would like. I think that if women were truly oppressed there would not be the kind of social mobility for women that exist in today’s society. So I would have to say that I agree with Frye in that I to also believe that the term oppressed is often misused.